Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway....
 

Ok, like the title says, I cant believe my eyes. I have taken a few crankshaft pulleys off and as everybody knows it is a bitch to do. Well today after having lunch with my wife, I was driving on the freeway normal speed, 80 mph, all with a few seconds the car makes a weird noise, i hear a lot clink as something hit the undercarriage and then lost my power steering. btw it is a 1999 accord lx never touched the pulley. Well anyways I pull over thinking that maybe the power steering belt broke, i kept the engine running, I looked and the belt is still whole but not moving and then i see the crankshaft pulley wobbling like hell. I immediately turn the car off. I couldnt believe my eyes, them things are a great pain in the $$$ to get off and this one comes off while driving. Well the inside of the pulley is striped and the shaft is rounded off. Is it possible to replace this shaft? I want to go to the junk yard but i dont think I can remove a pulley by myself. Any tips would be helpful. thanks.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

i would check that the spline coming out of the engine is in tact bro because that spline is your crank!

and check for those god forsaken woodruff keys and see if might have been the culprit. also check the threads for the crank pulley bolt inside of the crank to make sure they are intact and not stripped ....

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Same thing happened to my '99 EX, and like you the crank pulley had never been touched. Crank pulley came off on the highway because the key broke, and the key damaged the crank shaft enough that the crank needed replacement. In the end, it was easier for me to replace the whole motor with a low-mileage one from a junkyard.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

As mentioned elsewhere, that shaft you're mentioning is the crankshaft; and to replace it requires the complete removal of the engine if the engine stands any chance of being reassembled correctly.
Has the belt ever been serviced? Are you the original owner?
I've seen three of these, two predicated on the retainer bolt breaking, both after a timing belt job. Coincidence? maybe.
Both required the crankshaft being replace.

P

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

The bolt came off the freeway and the onlything holding the pulley on was the belts and the key. The crankshaft is totally smooth with no splines. My wife is not going to like hearing that we need a new engine. No we are not the original owners however the timing belt was replaced two years ago.

Well since i will have to replace the engine, i might as well throw a h22 in there or just get a v6 from another accord. I dont know about cali laws regarding swapping motors.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Well the crankshaft had no scaring and the threads were just fine. I found out that even though the pulley has splines, the crankshafts are smooth, which was my main concern. I had to purchase a bolt from the dealer and that ran me $35. I also purchased a new pulley and surprisingly napa had the cheapest pulley for $50. Autozone wanted $65, Pepboy wanted $70, Kargen wanted $90 and dealer wanted a whopping $110. I did not have the proper tool to keep the pulley spinning and I also did not have a chain wrench. I did however, had a pipe wrench that was just barely big enough. Long story short the pipe wrench sliped and I broke the new pulley. So I went and purchased another one. The lady felt sorry and gave me a $5 dollar discount. This time I borrowed a impact gun and hammered it on. So everything is fixed and now I have a weird noise with the brakes. Unrelated but need to figure it out. I like to post the results and hate opening posts and not seeing any results from what people suggested.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

sorry to bring up an old thread, so you bought a new pulley and woodruff key and installed it even tho the splines were shot?

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Yes I bought a new pulley and woodruff key and have not had any problems since. I did not know that the crank was suppose to be smooth, I thought the pulley stripped the crank. I thought the crank was suppose to have spines that the pulley slide over because the pulley had groves. The threads on the crank were fine and I did not see any damage to the crank. The pulley, however, was no longer circular from the wobbling so I replaced it and I just felt safer replacing the key also. I hope this clarify things for you.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

yes it does very much, i assumed the crank had splines to. i'm working on a civic with a b16y7 motor but i assume it's pretty similar setup. i thought the motor was trashed but i gues the dummie who did the t-belt job forgot about that woodruff key. don't know how they adjusted the timing, or maybe they just didnt' care.

I think i'll buy a pulley from the junkyard as the crankbolt threads were good. and maybe a new crankbolt or use the current one?

oh where did you get the woodruff?

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

same thing happen to me after a fresh rebuild. Everything was torqued down even the axle nuts. came off after i ran one of my buddies b16 teg, the pulley was still on, a little part of the bolt was still in the crankshaft, and also the key was half melted. Just replaced the bolt and the key. still need to replace the crankshaft. still running.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

If you don't want to buy a brand new boot, just take the bolt along with the pulley you are getting. I bought the bolt and woodruff key from the dealership. I'm sure you can get it from autoparts store as they are a common part.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

OK got the key at the dealer 5$ and some change. fits a little tighter on the pulley than it does on the crank but tdc is spot on. the timing gear on the crank has a small amount of play if i move it clock wise or counterclockwise.

Now i think i understand the reason for the splines on the puley and the timing gear.
I guess it works kinda like a heat sink and only the spline portion is touching the crank leaving room for expantion and cooling?

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Thanks for posting! This happened to us today. Power steering went out, then something was flying out from under the car. Although we had just changed the water pump and timing belt a week prior to this (leaking antifreeze terribly). My husband thought it was maybe tools flying out from working on it...well in fact it wasn't it was the shredded belt. We were just trying to make it home and then an even louder noise came from engine compartment, like something bigger had fallen, although not seeing anything coming out from underneath:scared::scared: We pulled into autozone to find that one belt was missing and the other was not intact, the bolt in the crankshaft/harmonic balancer was missing as well. The key was the only thing holding the harmonic balancer on. We looked everywhere we could on the street for the bolt and had no luck finding it. So my husband started it up and he went into reverse and it putted and died out. So then he started it again and put it into drive and it went but putted and died again. He is thinking that the timing jumped when he started the first time going into reverse. We had it towed home which was a 3 hour wait and in the mean time he was repairing my hub-bearing on my 2001 odyssey, which is done now. However, now we have another mess on our hands :cry::cry::cry: It seems as if we fix one thing on the accord and anther goes bad! The day before this happened it started to overheat cause the fan was not working due to the temperature sensor! When do u say enough is enough! One good thing is with all the issues that we had until up to now is it always starts right up, which yeah now it starts but wouldn't stay running, but normally is starts right up and runs like a champ! We have only owned it for a year, and we have put 35k on it, it has 274k on it. Its in good condition really! I just don't want to sink a whole lot more time and money into it if its really not going to be worth it! Thanks for the forum, it really has helped us to figure out what is wrong with it! Bc my husband was starting to think that it was something with the crankshaft and the motor. Now we see it probably needs a new crankshaft pulley, key, and bolt, well that is what we are hoping anyway!

And check the timing. When my crank pulley bolt came out (from being under torqued) the woodruf key slid causing the timing gear on the crank to spin smashing for exhaust valves. That engine is a zero tolerance engine. Stop running it until everything is verified.


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Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

You mean an interference engine? As opposed to a non-interference engine?

Same thing different wording


Posted from Honda-tech.com App for Android

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Tolerance: The ability or willingness to tolerate something.

Interference: The action of interfering or the process of being interfered with.

Not even close, nor the correct terminology.

The engine has zero tolerance for the timing being incorrect.

I know it's an interference engine. The machine shops around here call then non tolerance engines.


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Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

I own a 1999 Accord coupe with very high miles (about 170,000) ,and my Wife was driving it on I-95 and the serpentine belt came off.luckily,she was at an exit ,and somehow managed to make it off the highway and to a gas station with no steering ,and everything else hooked up to the belt. I noticed the pulley connected to crankshaft was wobbly. Is this fixable? I called my auto parts guy ,and they said I needed a harmonic balancer. Does this sound like it could be correct? Any help greatly appreciated. I had to leave the car parked about 20 miles from my home in a bank parking lot,as this happened Friday 6:00 PM rush hour madness in the rain.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

wth, this seems to be a common occurrence with this gen. accord?

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

Before you go out and buy a new harmonic balancer, check the bolt. It might have been stretched and back itself off and that is why it is loose.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

I just had a similar failure. Crankshaft pulley came off, crankshaft keyway destroyed. Only 133k on the 3.5 VTEC of my 2008 Odyssey. Only work done in that area was timing belt replacement 27k ago. Could anything have been done wrong during that work that long ago to cause this?https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/honda-t...7d512a6a1a.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/honda-t...4aa32fe548.jpg

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

My '99 Honda Accord EX 3.4L appears to have experienced something similar to the above. Took a right turn in a residential area (thankfully only going 5 mph), and the car suddenly died. Upon restarting it heard an awful thumping sound from under the hood. Discovered that the serpentine belt had slipped off and the crank shaft pulley was wobbly. After removing the power steering pump and serpentine belt completely to more closely inspect the crank pulley, the pulley feels as if it is about to fall out. Never had an issue with anything similar to this before and no work has recently been done on the car in this area.

Getting it towed and will attempt to replace the pulley/harmonizer (if necessary) this weekend. Also replacing the serp and ps belt as they were old but feel confident that they weren't the issue. Will post back here with what I find once I have a better look with pictures.

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

If the bolt was not properly torqued it could loosen and back out.
It could also be that the bolt was over torqued and stretched beyond yield. This would cause the bolt to loosen as well. But I find it highly unlikely that the bolt would be overtorqued and not show signs of damage.
I

Re: Cant believe my eyes......crankshaft pulley fell off while driving on the freeway
 

new motor